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Rekha Dixit
Rekha Dixit

KATHMANDU

Nepal President Bhandari to visit India next week

pranab-bhandari-pti [File photo] President Pranab Mukherjee with his Nepal counterpart Bidya Devi Bhandari | PTI

Last year, her visit was cancelled due to tense political situation in Nepal and strained ties with India

Almost a year after her proposed visit was cancelled following a tense political environment in Nepal and strained bilateral ties with India, President Bidya Devi Bhandari is expected to visit India from April 17 to 21. 

Bhandari will be visiting New Delhi, Gujarat and Odisha, confirmed the Ministry of External Affairs. This is her first official trip to India as well as state visit after assuming office in October 2015. 

Bhandari is the second president of Nepal. The post of President was created in 2008 soon after monarchy rule came to an end in the neighbouring country. 

Bhandari was scheduled to visit New Delhi in May 2016, but the visit was cancelled just 72 hours before, without citing any reason. This came closely after the then Nepal Prime minister K P Oli, whose government had just survived a coup attempt by Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda, blamed India for trying to topple his government. He also subsequently recalled Nepal's ambassador to India Deep Kumar Upadhyay. 

However, Oli had to later relinquish his seat and Prachanda took over as the next prime minister in August 2016. Ties between the two countries are being realigned ever since. Prachanda made his first state visit to India last September, days after he took over. 

Apart from Oli blaming India for unseating him, Indo-Nepal ties also faced discord after his government passed a Constitution that, according to India, gave the Madhesis (dwellers of the foothills of Nepal, who have close familial ties with Indians in border areas of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar) a raw deal. India's foreign secretary S. Jaishankar had then headed to Kathmandu to express the country's displeasure with the Constitution. This also did not go down well with Nepal. 

Subsequently, Indian supply trucks to the country were stopped at the border. Nepal termed it as India's bullying and arm-twisting tactics, but India maintained that the blockade was initiated by its neighbour themselves. 

The shortage of supplies to Nepal, which was already reeling from the damage of the April 2015 earthquake, led to a bleak winter in 2015-16. 

However, things changed soon after Prachanda took charge and President Pranab Mukherjee's visit to Nepal last Novermber, when he invited Bhandari to visit India. 

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